Understanding the Los Angeles River


Something that puzzles people in Los Angeles, and also in Phoenix, is that these cities were built along a river. And if riverboats spring to mind, you have to realize that both of these cities are desert cities (Phoenix is hotter, but Los Angeles is actually drier). And so when you see the word "river" on a map of Los Angeles or Phoenix, they're not really rivers, not like the rivers that I remember growing up in Minnesota, with water in it all of the time, like the Mississippi. They're washes.

If you're not familiar with desert washes, they're places that flow with water after it rains, or after snow melts up in the mountains, and then they dry up in the summer, and spend most of their time kinda muddy and stagnant. When Phoenix and Los Angeles were very small, there was enough water for people to use, with care, including plenty of groundwater for wells. But desert washes can be dangerous, and Phoenix has dealt with having a sudden increase of water flow by leaving a gigantic area undeveloped (just fly over Phoenix and you'll see how wide the Salt River bed is) and Los Angeles dealt with it by paving it, and creating a channel to guide the water to the ocean, and not overflow into the neighborhoods.

I just went on Google Earth and followed the LA River from the San Fernando Valley down to Long Beach (which is the pic I posted on the top of this post). I never lived anywhere near the mouth of the river, and I've never seen water in it like that, but it makes sense as it's right there near the ocean. Mostly the LA River I've seen is just concrete with stagnant water in it, and scattered shopping carts, going through Canoga Park. It's not pretty, but it does its job, which is to keep the river from flooding the neighborhoods.

Like all great engineering, the paved LA River has done its job so well that most people don't even realized that the river used to flood, and it's the same with the Salt River in Phoenix. When they do look at it, they're just seeing an ugly functional thing, and some people would like it to be both functional and beautiful. A worthy goal!
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